Home for the Holidays
by messyfeathers
Summary: The invitation to spend Christmas at Carlos's brother's house seemed as good an excuse as any to introduce Cecil to the family. If only years of Night Vale holidays hadn't left Cecil absolutely terrified of jingle bells and Perry Como songs. It's a transition to be sure.
1. Chapter 1

_Author Notes: Welcome to Night Vale belongs to Commonplace books. Christmas Cecilos is my favorite thing in this fandom, so have a warm, fuzzy meet-the-family/Cecil-in-the-outside-world fic because 'tis the season!_

* * *

"How do you understand the words when they go so fast?" Cecil yawned from the passenger seat of the car where he was bundled in a sleepy little ball. The instant they had hit the road, he'd fallen fast asleep. Carlos had shuffled his iPod to contend with the hypnotic lull of the empty highway; it had settled on a run of Spanish pop songs.

"It's like you and Nicki Minaj," Carlos laughed.

"At least you can understand Nicki Minaj too," Cecil sighed, poking his arms through the sleeves of the highlighter yellow NVCR hoodie he wore backwards as a makeshift blanket. "I signed up for Weird Spanish up at the community college you know. I was going to surprise you, but the class was canceled when the professor got lost in the Whispering Forest a week before term."

"You were going to take Spanish classes?" Carlos smiled over at his boyfriend. "Cariño, I can teach you Spanish if you want to learn."

"I just wish I had learned by Christmas," Cecil mumbled.

"Cecil, they're not going to only speak in Spanish, I promise. When we're together sometimes we slip into it - sure - but I told them you don't speak it. They'll want you to be included." Cecil seemed unconvinced. Ever since they had accepted the invitation to spend Christmas at Carlos's brother's house in Massachusetts, the bilingual nature of the scientist's family had become a major source of his boyfriend's apprehension. Carlos had other concerns about the trip. He'd never crossed the city limits with Cecil and had half expected something terrible to happen at the edge of town. Cecil had only stirred slightly in his sleep and mumbled something about a clown. Now that he was awake again, though, he looked considerably more ashen and slightly shaky. "You feel okay?" Carlos asked quietly.

"The air's different here," Cecil shrugged.

"Can you breathe it alright?" Carlos took a hand off the wheel to clasp Cecil's in between them.

"Yeah." Cecil shifted position again, curling even tighter into a ball. "It's just lighter than it should be. Like it's missing something. That and it's cold." Carlos turned the temperature up a notch even if it was still a little too warm for comfort outside given it was December. "Where are we?" Cecil yawned again.

"A little less than an hour from Phoenix. You can sleep a bit more if you'd like." Cecil brushed a lazy kiss to the scientist's hand before letting go again so he could drive.

* * *

One of the things Carlos loved about Cecil was how much Cecil loved kids - the zombie ones, the creepy soulless ones, the boy scouts - any children he came across. It was a mutual affection; children always seemed to be equally fond of Cecil. More times than Carlos admitted, the thought would drift into his mind that Cecil would make a great father someday. But things like marriage or a family were still too many somedays away so Carlos would always push the thoughts to the back of his mind until they would unexpectedly resurface and bring with them an involuntary little smile.

The two had finally stumbled their way through airport security with an obscene amount of coaxing and reassurances on the scientist's part, and now sat at their terminal waiting for their delayed flight to Chicago where they planned to stay the night with Carlos's grandmother. In the row across from theirs a mother and young girl dropped worn out luggage into the seats with relief that the connecting flight was fifteen minutes late. The previous leg of their journey must have been rough, since the mother immediately went in search of a garbage bin to dispose of an airsickness bag. The little girl was pale and sweaty and staring very openly at Cecil. With a mischievous grin, he reached up to adjust his glasses, allowing the full moon tattooed across the back of his hand to flicker into an eclipse. The girl's eyes widened as she sat up straight. Her scrutiny only intensified a few moments later as Cecil pretended to sneeze into the other hand, scattering the geodesic patterns settled across his forearm like confetti.

"How did you do that?" the girl giggled, pushing herself off the chair and wandering across the aisle.

"Magic," Cecil winked. "Want to see a trick?" The girl nodded enthusiastically. Cecil held out both hands, palms down, and blinked rapidly. An indigo eye opened across the pale skin of each hand. He balled them into fists and tapped them together. The tattoos combined into one large tribal eye - the one that usually resided at the base of the man's neck. Carlos had quickly learned that although the tattoos were sentient symbiotic beings that moved quite a bit all on their own, Cecil did have some measure of control over them if he focused hard enough. The girl watched transfixed as Cecil tapped his fists together again, causing the eye to disappear completely.

"Where is it?" she asked, craning to check his arms as far as they peeked out from his sleeves. Cecil discreetly smoothed back a lock of hair to reveal the eye's new location in the center of his forehead. Carlos shook his head with a grin as the girl clapped. "Another!"

"How about this?" Cecil blinked, purposely shifting his eyes from purple to a lime green. Like the tattoos, if he focused hard enough Cecil could shift his eye colors at will. The girl drew in a quick breath of surprise.

"Can you do other colors?" she whispered.

"I can do any color. What's your favorite?"

"Pink!" she cheered.

"Pink," Cecil murmured as his eyelids fluttered closed. It was difficult, Carlos noticed. They had agreed at the start of their relationship to never mention Cecil's eyes and the transparency it gave to his emotions, but Carlos had still inadvertently observed the patterns often enough to determine their various meanings. To conjure them at will, he assumed, would require intense focus on the particular feeling; in pink's case - unease and embarrassment. Cecil's eyes flickered open at a deep magenta.

"Lighter, lighter," his audience insisted. He blinked and they went a shade of bubblegum. "Even lighter!" He blinked again, this time one eye settling on cotton candy while the other went a pale powdery hue.

"How about now?" His fan applauded again with a delighted giggle, her entire demeanor losing all traces of her motion sickness. Even Carlos laughed a bit. Cecil shook his head, returning his eyes back to their customary indigo.

"What's your name?" the girl asked.

"I'm Cecil, and this is my boyfriend Carlos," the radio host replied as he slipped his arm naturally through the other man's.

"My name's-"

"_Annabelle_!" Her mother marched over and snatched the girl's hand away. "What have I told you about talking to strangers?" Annabelle cast a worried look to her new friends.

"But, Mama, you should see his eyes-" she protested.

"Go sit with the suitcase," her mother ordered before rounding on Cecil and Carlos. "You should be ashamed of yourselves for behaving like that in public. It's disgusting and immoral, and I won't have you teaching my impressionable daughter that it's okay," she spat venomously, turning sharply back towards her seat. Cecil cast a concerned look at his partner.

"Do you think it's because she saw the patterns move?" he asked as he self-consciously tugged down the sleeves of his sweater.

"It's not your tattoos," Carlos assured him quietly. There was an unusual bite to his tone that worried Cecil slightly. He reached for the scientist's hand, but the man slipped it away nonchalantly with an excuse that they would be boarding the plane any minute now. They found their seats and settled in wordlessly, save a few basic instructions on how the rows numbered and how the seatbelts buckled. Annabelle and her mother took their assigned seats across the narrow aisle of the plane, much to the woman's dismay. She made a very loud scene of asking the flight attendant for a seat change and an even louder fit as the attendant informed her the flight was full. A tense silence settled in around them as Carlos still refused to even look in Cecil's direction, choosing instead to watch the afternoon sunlight reflect off the smooth metal of the wing.

"I shouldn't have to be forced to watch this the whole flight," the woman huffed as she buckled into her seat.

"I'm sorry," Cecil offered across the aisle.

"Don't apologize to her," Carlos interrupted quietly.

"If I've done something offensive, I want to do my best to make amends," Cecil explained in a whisper.

"You didn't do anything to her. It's just - she just.." Something about the innocent, confused expression on Cecil's face seemed fragile. Carlos hadn't wanted to break the curiosity and wonder with which the radio host had viewed the outside world so far, but in retrospect Carlos realized he should have spoken with Cecil about it before they even left. So he very carefully took Cecil's hand in both his own and gently asked, "Cecil, do you know what homophobia is?" Cecil was thoughtful for a minute.

"Is it the fear of being the same? Of being ordinary?" Carlos smiled slightly.

"It should be, shouldn't it? People should be afraid of all being the same." Cecil nodded in agreement. "Unfortunately, homophobia is when people hate people like us." Cecil just gave him a very puzzled look.

"People like...us?" Carlos decided on a simpler approach.

"Have you ever been mistreated for dating other men?" he asked quietly. Cecil shook his head.

"Why would people criticize me for something like that?" His eyes widened suddenly. "Wait, have you?" Carlos dropped his gaze to his red sneakers. "Who? When was this?"

"Lots of people, all my life since I was 17. Today. Her." He nodded towards the woman seated across the aisle, glad the taxying engines drowned their conversation from prying ears. Cecil looked as if he were piecing together a horrible puzzle.

"So when she said our behavior was disgusting and immoral, she meant because we were..." His aquamarine eyes glanced down in surprise at their joined hands. "That makes no sense - why would it matter to other people who we love? It shouldn't make a difference."

"I know, honey. It shouldn't, but it does. It doesn't help that we're a bit of a double threat," Carlos continued.

"How so?" Cecil asked as he eyed the crowded rows of passengers mistrustfully.

"You remember the Apache Tracker?" Carlos asked.

"_Ugh_. He was such a-" Cecil stopped himself quickly "good man," he muttered.

"He was a racist jerk, it's okay to say it. Unfortunately the world is also full of Apache Trackers who sometimes aren't good people deep down."

"They made fun of you for the color of your skin?" Cecil asked in a very small voice. Carlos just shrugged. "Oh, Carlos," he breathed. "You never told me. Is all this why you wouldn't hold my hand earlier?"

"I didn't want you to hear the words I've heard or be called the things I've been called. I wanted to protect you from this side of the world." Cecil very distinctly locked their fingers together in his lap, using his free hand to tilt the scientist's downturned expression up to face him.

"You can't protect me from your world any more than I can protect you from mine." He offered a small smile. "Is everyone here like that though?"

"Oh, no." Carlos shook his head. "There are lots of people like us, and even more people who aren't, but agree that it shouldn't make a difference. It's just that the hateful people can be the loudest and most violent."

"Your family isn't homo..." Cecil tried to remember the word.

"_Homophobic_," Carlos finished. "No, my family came to the conclusion a long time ago that love is more important than church tradition." He paused for a moment. "My brother's wife will probably inform you at least twice that you're going to hell, but what does she know? She married into the family, so she just has to put up with it." Cecil smiled a little, but all traces of his excitement at the prospect of flying had completely vanished. Despite his attempts to appear unshaken, he kept shooting uncertain, suspicious glances around the cabin - especially towards the woman a few feet away. "Do you want to trade seats?" Carlos offered once the seatbelt sign switched off. "I don't mind it all so much anymore." Cecil shook his head. "You sure?" Cecil just nodded with a smile that was all lips and no eyes. "Well here, I brought this along for the trip." Carlos reached into his carry on and pulled out a thick hardcover (municipally-approved) book - Cecil's favorite collection of Night Vale-ian fables. His boyfriend's face lit up at the familiar bit of home. Carlos leaned over and planted a quick kiss to his cheek. "We'll be there soon."

* * *

The flight went smoother once they had been in the air for a while. Between his in-depth explanations of the morals to be found in _The Little Chainsaw That Could_, and his frequent unexpected invasions of personal space to peek out the window at the darkening clouds, Cecil relaxed considerably. By the time they had loaded all their bags into the trunk of the taxi, he was back to asking a near-constant stream of questions.

"Why are we taking a taxi? Didn't you say it's pretty far to get to your grandmother's?" Cecil pressed his nose to the window, his breath fogging up the frosty glass.

"The alternative is to take the L trains. They're like subways, but elevated tracks instead of underground," Carlos explained. "I didn't think you would want to take public transit." Cecil shrugged.

"If we went together it wouldn't be so bad. But I did get pretty hungry all those years with no snack stops, so probably a good decision," he agreed as he reached into the colossal bag of jelly beans he had immediately rescued from their safely-packed cubbie in the suitcase. "It sure is cold here," Cecil shivered despite his multiple layers of clothing, including Carlos's own denim jacket. The scientist had packed extra layers in anticipation - if Cecil was cold even in the desert of Arizona, he would definitely need extra bundling further north. Cecil sighed and leaned on his boyfriend's shoulder, cuddling in close for warmth. Carlos had barely gotten his arm around the radio host before he was back to the window again. "Snow," he whispered in quiet reverence. Absently, his hand felt around behind him for the jelly beans that Carlos had discreetly slipped back into his duffel bag. A hurt look crossed Cecil's face at the realization.

"Cariño, the absolute _last_ thing you need right now is more sugar. Besides, Abuela Rosa is going to have dinner waiting for us when we get there." He rubbed his boyfriend's back calmingly. Cecil slumped back down against the cracked leather seat and leaned on Carlos's shoulder.

"Sorry, I'm just nervous," he mumbled.

"Don't be, she's going to love you," Carlos assured him.

"I know, it's all just a bit overwhelming I guess. Everything is so different from home. The air is different, the people are different, the weather is different, even the traffic is different." Carlos glanced out the frosty window at the endless stream of taillights on either side of their taxi. "How are you used to this?" Cecil asked quietly.

"I grew up here," the scientist shrugged. He tried to think of a way to ease the culture shock. "How would you describe this traffic?"

"_Slow,_" Cecil sighed.

"No, I mean, if you were reporting this over the radio, what would you say?" Cecil sat up a little straighter and stared back out the window.

"The cars go on endlessly, possibly eternally. The drivers within stare ahead, desperate to reach their destinations. They are resigned to their speed, to the stop-and-go crawl because they know that although they may arrive to their destinations, they will never truly complete their journey. Sunrise and sunset lose meaning as both fade into a vast ocean of headlights and taillights. The road goes on forever in both directions. And deep down they know they will forever remain...empty," he finished with a shiver.

"Need help with the bags?" the taxi driver interrupted as they pulled up to a dilapidated brick apartment building.

"We're alright," Carlos said quietly - not entirely sure if it was a response to the driver's question or the slightly terrifying traffic report.

* * *

_End Notes: unfortunately a lot of this is based off actual situations I've witnessed before. And Cecil learning about homophobia is always a little heartbreaking, but I suppose if he's gonna encounter the real world, he has to encounter the bad as well as the good, right? There's gonna be five chapters to this, posted once a day up til Christmas. (I wish I could say I planned that, but mostly I just got lucky with the timing of getting this polished up enough to post!)_


	2. Chapter 2

_Author Notes: in which I apologize ahead of time for completely butchering the Spanish language. my bilingual parents wouldn't help me, abandoning me to my high school level sentence construction. awesome._

* * *

**For their first trip outside the desert, Cecil is handling things remarkably well. Except for his crippling fear of furniture. And the void. But then again, shouldn't you always fear the void?**

* * *

"Remember what we talked about on the flight: the furniture isn't going to disappear, the books won't hurt you, and I already asked her to cover the mirrors just in case." Carlos fiddled with Cecil's hair, making sure all the stray bits from the long flight were somewhat straightened out.

"How do you know she'll like me? What if she disapproves?" Carlos gave his hand a squeeze and rang the doorbell.

"She'll love you." No sooner had the door opened than Carlos was dragged inside into a tight hug.

"Carlito!" the older woman cooed. It was immediately obvious from which side of the family Carlos got his dark eyes and slight build. They even shared the same raven hair, though the old woman's was heavily streaked with silver and smoothly braided over one shoulder. "Te ves bien! Y tu pelo es lindo!" She tugged at a few of his unruly curls.

"Abuela," Carlos groaned.

"Dónde está tu sorpresa?" she asked, peering around the scientist. He took a step back to pull Cecil into the doorway.

"Abuela Rosa, this is Cecil." With only a quick glance over, the woman snatched Cecil down into an equally tight embrace.

"You can call me Abuela," she told Cecil in a thick, warm accent. "Tu sorpresa es muy guapo," she intimated to Carlos as she hurried back into the apartment. "Come in!" she called over her shoulder.

"What did she say to you?" Cecil whispered.

"She says you're very handsome," Carlos replied with a grin.

Dinner was a slightly stressful experience. Over bowls of tortilla soup, Abuela Rosa alternated between chiding Carlos for not visiting sooner and quizzing Cecil with questions ranging from personal questions about his intentions in dating her grandson to general questions about the town where he grew up. With his boyfriend's whispered permission, Cecil answered every question as simply as he could. Even so, the interview was still peppered with frequent additions on the scientist's part of '_we weren't actually pleading with an architectural structure for our lives - it's more just a Thanksgiving folk tradition,_' and '_he's not _literally_ a dragon, he just comes across a bit intimidating_.' The soup ran out long before the questions; Carlos was about to suggest holding the rest of the interrogation for the next morning's flight to Massachusetts when Cecil took advantage of a lull in conversation.

"Excuse me, but where is your bathroom?" he asked politely. The old woman's expression immediately transitioned from quizzical back into a crinkled smile.

"End of the hallway on the left," she replied. Carlos began to stack the empty dishes on the table.

"Carlos?" Cecil asked very softly, causing the scientist to turn. "Are you sure the mirror is covered?" Though Carlos suspected outside Night Vale the mirrors would pose little to no threat, it wasn't a hypothesis he was willing to test with Cecil's life, so he had requested ahead of time that any mirrors in guest bedrooms be moved or covered.

"Yeah," he assured as he went back to collecting silverware. Cecil shifted uncomfortably in the hallway.

"Can you check?" The way Cecil looked like a lost puppy as he stood out of sorts in the very normal hallway tugged at the scientist's heart a little.

"Of course." He abandoned the cleanup to double check the safety of the bathroom. By the time he returned alone back to the kitchen, his grandmother was already scrubbing at the plates in the sink and eyeing him curiously. He waved away her unasked question. "It's a religious thing."

"No mirrors seems an odd thing to believe in," the old woman shrugged.

"Cecil's spent his whole life in a very odd town. He's a little strange, but in a good way," Carlos quickly amended.

"Is there anything specific I should do to help?" she offered, rinsing a handful of spoons. The scientist shook his head, plunging his hands into the soapy water to help.

"Actually," he added as an afterthought. "Extra blankets would be great. Cecil is almost always cold." His grandmother dried her hands on her floral apron and left in search of extra blankets.

* * *

Cecil smiled gratefully at the small woman as he clutched the vellux blanket to his chest. "Is there anything else you need?" she asked as she backed through the doorway.

"Actually, yes. I was wondering – what is the correct procedure for getting into the bed?" It was a logical question. In Night Vale it was common courtesy when hosting guests to leave a simple card on the pillow or at the very least a quick verbal explanation of the procedure most pleasing to the particular bed to avoid being tossed out in your sleep, or worse - absorbed as Cecil's second cousin Frederick had once been unfortunate enough to experience. Rosa stared at him for a very long moment. Cecil glanced around uncomfortably, suddenly afraid he had said something dreadfully offensive. "That's alright," he amended quickly. "I'll figure it out. Thank you!" Cecil flashed his most winning smile, receiving a nod in response. She closed the door and walked wordlessly down the narrow hallway. Carlos was still busily scrubbing away at the soup pan in the sink, humming an off-key Christmas carol.

"I'm beginning to see what you mean about him being strange," she said as she began to dry the bowls one-by-one and replace them in the cupboard. "He just asked me how to get in a bed." Carlos let out a laugh at all the precautionary warnings they had discussed on the flight that his boyfriend had apparently very quickly forgotten. "Definitely the most unusual you've brought home. Though also my favorite."

"Why's that?"

"Because he really loves you," she replied simply.

"How do you know he loves me?" Carlos asked as he rinsed out the inside of the pot and handed it to his grandmother's waiting towel.

"He listens carefully to every word you say without interrupting. He pretends not to notice when you slurp your soup. His face went very red every time you said his name. It isn't hard to see. Really, with all those fancy degrees of yours I can't believe you didn't figure it out by now," she chuckled. Carlos felt his cheeks flush.

"No, I know he loves me. I just didn't know it was so obvious to everyone else," he mumbled.

"He respects you too," she continued as she handed him the pan, counting on his extra few inches of height to reach the dish's precarious home above the refrigerator. "And more importantly, he respects _me_."

"Abuelita," Carlos laughed as he perched the pot as best he could.

"Most importantly," she went on. "He makes you happier than you've been for a very long time. You smile so much, and you're well-fed, and that flush to your cheeks," she pinched them for good measure. "Ah, nieto." Carlos smiled as he wiped needlessly at the spotless countertop. All his life his grandmother had been the one he went to for everything from homework help to dating advice. Her opinion had carried the most weight in every major decision in his life - more than he assumed even she knew. "He's good for you, Carlito. Don't let that boy go," she finished. Carlos grinned and leaned down to plant a kiss on her cheek.

"I'm glad you approve, Abuelita." She laughed and shooed him away with her towel.

"You get on to bed, I can clean the rest of this."

* * *

Carlos paused outside the door to his old bedroom, trying to brace himself to avoid not laughing too hard. He opened the door to see Cecil sitting cross-legged with his back against the far wall, staring intently at the bed. He was clutching a folded pastel pink vellux blanket tightly to his chest and looking up at Carlos apologetically.

"I couldn't figure out how to get into the bed." Carlos crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe, unable to stop the grin from spreading across his face at the sight of his fish-out-of-water boyfriend. "I've had one too many close calls with furniture, I mean, I once had this second cousin Frederick who was absorbed straight into the mattress. It was downright horrifying!" Carlos wandered over and crouched down to eye level with Cecil.

"That does sound horrifying," he replied, removing one of Cecil's hands from its death grip on the blanket and pressing the palm to his lips. "I think beds are different here though, not quite as violent." He brushed his thumb across Cecil's hand before standing and pulling the other man to his feet as well. "In fact, you can just climb right in, no ceremony or sacrifice or even any chanting." Cecil cast a doubtful glance behind Carlos to the small mattress. His lavender eyes widened after a moment.

"Your grandmother must think I'm insane," he whispered. Carlos laughed, pulling Cecil in for a kiss.

"My grandmother thinks you're good for me." He kissed Cecil again, using the distraction to gently tug the vellux blanket from the man's hands. Pulling away, he tossed the blanket on the bed and took both of Cecil's now-free hands. They were clammy, unsteady, out of place in the foreign environment. "Would you like a hot chocolate?"

"Isn't it a bit late? We shouldn't wake your grandmother," Cecil hesitated.

"She'll be up watching novelas for a while." Carlos stepped backwards toward the door, pulling Cecil with him. "I'll show you my favorite thinking place." Cecil smiled shyly and complied, allowing himself to be pulled down the narrow hall behind Carlos. The scientist mixed them each a mug of cocoa complete with little star marshmallows from the pantry – much to Cecil's delight – and, mugs in hand, they crept to the window in the small dining area. Carlos set the drinks on the little table and shoved the pane of the window upward until it opened with a rusty squeak. Sounds that Cecil hadn't noticed were muffled suddenly grew to full volume. Traffic horns, the cacophony of more than one nearby apartment competing with rap music, somewhere in the distance a lone siren howling. Carlos climbed through the window onto the metal fire escape outside with practiced ease. He leaned back through, carefully lifting the mugs of cocoa and setting them on the rusty platform and reaching a hand that Cecil grasped shakily, uncertain about such behavior. In Night Vale windows were almost always barred, not to keep things out, but as a precautionary measure by the Sheriff's Secret Police to keep residents in. Carlos led him up a seemingly endless zigzag maze of stairs until they finally reached the top floor. In the dizzying sea of lights below that seemed alive with movement and sound, he chose to focus on Carlos - the steady and fixed point in his reality - to keep from losing balance.

Carlos unhinged the latch on the fence surrounding the rooftop and swung the door wide, motioning for Cecil to enter first. The rooftop was home to a small, straggling garden filled with twisting, climbing plants escaping their pots. In any other setting, it would have seemed bedraggled and dismal, but as the two of them settled down right in the middle of the rows of struggling begonias, Cecil thought it was the most beautiful place in the world.

"So this is your thinking place?" Cecil with a sigh that swirled visibly into the drifting snowflakes.

"Yeah. I used to come up here whenever my grandma was fighting with my uncle. It was my escape I guess. I'd come up here after bedtime some nights too, just to listen to the city." Carlos closed his eyes, drinking in the sounds of urban life beneath them. "I'd fall asleep pretending I could see the stars." As Cecil looked up, for the first time realizing the lack of stars, he suddenly began to panic.

"The void is so vast here. I've never seen it so-so empty. Carlos, that can't be normal, can it? I mean-"

"Cecil, Cecil." Carlos cupped Cecil's face with a hand. "It's okay." He smiled. "It's not void, it's just the light of the city outshining the stars." Cecil glanced back up at the night sky uneasily. "In fact even back home," Carlos felt Cecil shiver slightly at his use of the word home to denote Night Vale "just because you can't see stars doesn't mean it's void. The stars are just too far away to be seen." Cecil shook his head vehemently.

"It's not though, sometimes it's void." The edge of uncertainty in his voice reminded Carlos just how shaken up the whole trip to reality had gotten Cecil. The scientist kissed his cheek sweetly.

"Maybe you're right." They were quiet for a moment as they sipped at their cocoa. "Thanks for coming with me," Carlos finally said as he emptied his mug and set it carefully on the ground. He snuggled closer to Cecil, tucking himself comfortably under his boyfriend's arm.

"Of course," Cecil replied quietly.

"I mean it though," Carlos continued. "I know things here are different and strange and probably a little scary. And it means a lot that you came with me, and that I can share my world with you."

"Carlos, can I ask you something?" Cecil ventured hesitantly.

"You can always ask me anything," Carlos replied as he absently played with Cecil's fingers, interlocking them with his own before untwining them again one-by-one.

"Why did you grow up with your grandmother?" Cecil chose the words tactfully, afraid of adding injury to some unknown hurt. Carlos stopped his rhythmic twiddling and was quiet for a long time. "I'm sorry, that was inappropriate," Cecil hurried, "If you don't want to talk about it or it's uncomfortable-"

"It's fine," Carlos said, gently placing a hand on Cecil's knee. "They tell me my mother was a good person," he began slowly. "They say she believed in the best in everyone, even sometimes when it wasn't really there." He dropped his gaze to his lap before continuing. "She was almost out of high school when she met a guy, saw the best in him. She dropped out of school to have my brother Cristobal and my sister Cassanya – they're twins – and then me not even a full year later. She didn't realize until she woke up on her 19th birthday that she had been wrong - some people don't have any good in them at all." He hesitated a moment before continuing. "She did what she could as a single mom, and for a while we were okay. She worked three jobs, two waitressing, one providing...company over the phone. She would come home and escape reality. I guess we all have our escapes. Hers was heroin." Carlos stopped to look up at the starless sky. "One day when I was three, she died trying to escape." Cecil was quiet, unsure how to respond, but Carlos smiled slightly. "It's not as depressing a story as it sounds, really. Cris and Cassie and I stayed there in New Mexico for a while living with my Tia Maria but she already had two children of her own and another on the way, so it was decided that I would come live here with Abuela Rosa and my Tio Cisco. He had some crazy dream of opening a brewery here in the city and my grandmother moved here with him years prior to help him out. Never really left after that I guess." He took a deep breath. "I grew up somewhere in between. Spent my summers in the desert sun with my siblings and the rest of my time here, helping out at the bar and watching reruns of _La Usurpadora_ until two every morning." Cecil laughed quietly, still attempting to process such a large amount of information he never imagined about Carlos. He found a strange new respect for the scientist and just how far he had come. Carlos was the smartest person Cecil knew, but he had never stopped to consider just how hard the man had worked to earn all his prestigious degrees and scientific achievements.

"You never met your father then?" he asked after a while.

"I don't think I'd want to, even if I ever did find out who he was," Carlos replied bitterly. Cecil wasn't quite sure how to respond until the words began to leave his lips without much conscious thought.

"I lost my mother when I was young too." Carlos turned to look at him, a soft curiosity in his expression. He had heard rumors about Cecil having had a family once, but he had never asked if they held any truth.

"You never told me that," Carlos replied quietly.

"You never asked," Cecil shrugged. There was no judgment in the statement, no indignation – simply fact. "I think you would have liked my mother. She was fascinating, even to me." He smiled fondly. "She was a seer, a real one with a third eye and everything! She saw things that no one else could see, she could predict the future, she knew things about everyone in town without even having to try." The pride was evident in his voice. "She was amazing." He paused for a long time, and Carlos wondered if he was going to continue at all. Finally he did. "Then one day when I was fifteen, I woke up and she was gone."

"Gone?" Carlos repeated curiously. Cecil nodded.

"Without a trace. All her belongings were gone, and so were all the pictures of us – everything. No one could remember her, not even her best friend Annie who still works down at the beauty parlor." Cecil laughed dryly to himself. "For a while I thought I was going crazy, until Josie found me wandering through the sand wastes. She told me my mother had seen something she wasn't supposed to, and that it would be better if I found a way to forget everything they had taken from me." His voice lowered to a whisper, his eyes fixed on some distant memory. "I don't know how I could ever forget her." He shook his head suddenly, a smile returning to his face. "Josie took care of me after that, helped me get through school, taught me how to live on my own. I think they had taken someone from her too, a long time ago, so it gave us a strange sort of bond." Carlos nodded understandingly. "I didn't know my father either. Never could get a straight answer out of my mom. She would always change her story. Sometimes he was an ancient demigod that created our little desert, other times a vanishing hitchhiker she picked up out by Exit 66, once she even told me it was old Alfred who owns the 7/11 down on Lincoln," Cecil finished with a laugh. He rubbed absently at the violet eye etched at the base of his neck, and Carlos finally began to piece the story together bit by bit.

"Was that the day the tattoos appeared?" he ventured softly, poking a wriggling pentagram that had wandered its way to Cecil's wrist.

"Nah," Cecil replied, shaking his head. "Just the one," he added, tapping the eye with a fingertip.

"Do you see things too?" Carlos's voice quavered slightly as he asked, unsure if he really wanted to know or not. Again Cecil shook his head, though with less conviction.

"Not the same way she could," Cecil added sadly. Carlos studied him carefully.

"How do you see?"

"I-I see emotions as colors that fade in and out of clarity," Cecil replied faintly. "Sometimes I catch glimpses of premonitions. Like-like déjà vu but stronger. If I focus I can.." he trailed off for a moment, trying to select the right word. "I can feel someone, their thoughts and feelings and their…their presence." He peeked at Carlos cautiously, unsure how the scientist would react to the news that his boyfriend was secretly a little paranormal. Carlos reached up and gently slipped off Cecil's thick-framed glasses, looking intently into his eyes of pale indigo.

"What do you see?" he whispered, tilting his head to one side. Cecil paused for a moment, his eyes searching Carlos's face carefully.

"You're curious, but I don't think you're afraid," he replied finally, a hint of a smile dancing at the edge of his mouth.

"Exactly. I have known for a very long time now that you're not entirely explainable. But I stopped being afraid of things I can't explain about the time I realized I can't really explain anything at all." Cecil couldn't help but smile, pleased at how well Carlos took the news, given he had spent many long and sleepless nights worrying about this very conversation.

"Carlos," he said seriously after a moment. "I want you to know, I've never tried to read you. I've never tried to see inside your mind, and I never will."

"Thank you," the scientist said as he leaned his head on Cecil's chest, allowing his boyfriend to wrap his arms closer. After a moment spent just listening to the sound of the city's song far below them, he peeked mischievously out of the top of his eyes. "Cecil, what color does love look like?" Cecil thought for a moment.

"I don't think there's a name for it. Passionate physical attraction on the other hand is a lovely deep red.." he teased, leaning down for a nibble on the sensitive skin behind his boyfriend's ear. Carlos laughed.

"I have always appreciated your use of subtle segues." Cecil grinned at the compliment, sneaking quick kisses up the back of Carlos's neck.

"How late do those novelas run again?" he whispered seductively before sneaking another kiss. Carlos shook his head and playfully pushed Cecil away.

"You realize we have to be awake and at the airport in-" he wriggled an arm free and checked the new watch he had bought at the airport gift shop, "five hours." Cecil sighed dramatically. "Time here is different than Night Vale. You're going to be surprised just how fast it goes," Carlos said as he pushed himself to his feet and reached out a hand to help Cecil up. As Cecil gained his balance, Carlos pulled him close, wrapping his arms around the taller man's waist. "I do love you though." Cecil beamed, leaning down and wrapping his arms in turn around Carlos. He kissed the scientist on the nose.

"And I love you very much," Cecil replied. Snagging the mugs, they crept back down the ridiculously noisy fire escape and crawled through the fourth story window into Abuela Rosa's dining room. Hand-in-hand they tripped over objects in the darkened apartment, muffling their giggles and whispered cursing as they stumbled to find the guest room in the dark. They changed out of their slightly snowy clothes and carefully folded their glasses on the dresser. Carlos set the clock (which he was unspeakably grateful worked) to wake them up in time to leave for the airport and was about to collapse into bed when he caught his boyfriend's nervous expression. He took Cecil by both hands across the striped bedspread.

"Count of three, just jump in okay? I won't let you get absorbed," he said, trying his best to maintain a straight face. Cecil took a deep breath. "Uno, dos, tres," Carlos counted, and the two jumped onto the bed, for a moment forgetting they were supposed to be adults. It was funny, Carlos thought, that Cecil had that effect on him. Sometimes he felt like a teenager falling in love for the first time all over again, other times he felt like a little kid exploring a big world with his best friend. Frequently he had to remind himself he was 30 now, and that Cecil was…who knew how old really? He'd never thought to outright ask. It was a reaction he would have to study further, sometime later when he wasn't too busy carving their names into the trees in Mission Grove or convincing Cecil it was silly to wear matching polka dot ties on date night.

* * *

_End Notes: I don't know why this took a kinda weird turn at the end, but I guess I've wanted to get the whole Cecil being not quite human thing written out somewhere at some point. Thanks for the feedback so far! Good to hear people are liking this. :)_


	3. Chapter 3

**Meeting the family can be stressful enough as it is, but even moreso when they make their Christmas cookies using flour. ****_Wheat _****flour.**

* * *

The flight to Massachusetts went much more smoothly. Cecil insisted on going through security for himself (they were only detained twice this time) and sitting by the window on the flight so he didn't have to keep reaching to watch the clouds go by below. He was quiet though, Carlos noticed. The only times he spoke were to comment on the interesting colors of the sunrise or help Rosa with her sudoku puzzles to pass the time. Though Carlos assured him that the hardest part of gaining his grandmother's approval was over, Cecil still shifted his weight uncomfortably as they gathered up their bags on the snowy sidewalk outside the Vasquez residence.

"It's like Marcus Vanston's neighborhood," he said quietly as he chewed on his lower lip. "But with fewer chimneys." Carlos glanced at the imposing brick exterior and shrugged.

"Don't let it fool you, my brother's pretty down-to-earth. He just thought it would be fun to make money in other people's sleep," he grinned. Cecil stared at him blankly. "That was a joke. My brother's an anesthesiologist, remember?"

"Oh." Cecil looked no less confused, so Carlos just shook his head and knocked on the door, all the while silently swearing to find a better sense of humor. Their welcome the previous night was nothing compared to the parade of hugs and high-pitched exclamations that awaited them in the foyer. A half-dozen uncomfortable cheek kisses later, Carlos finally managed to drag Cecil out of the grasp of his two aunts, who settled for asking Rosa all the details of the flight and the new young man who currently looked very frightened as he clung tightly to (and half hid behind) Carlos.

"Carlito!" a young woman squealed excitedly as she slid into the hallway. She was taller than Carlos and her eyes were a pale hazel, but they shared the same charming smile. "I feel like I haven't seen in you in so long," she gushed as she hugged him tightly for a long time. Finally, she pulled away to take a step towards Cecil. "You must be Cecil." She covered her smile with a hand as she looked between the couple for a moment. "Oh, I just love you already," she decided as she pulled Cecil into a hug as well - though much more gently than the rest of the Vasquez family had so far. "Where are my manners today?" she asked in a fluster as she reached for one of their bags. "My name's Cassie. I'm Carlos's older sister. And this is Cris." She nodded towards a tall, scruffy man who was laughing and patting Carlos on the back with slightly more force than was probably necessary. The man turned his attention to the radio host at the mention of his name.

"Cecil, is it?" He offered a hand. "It's good to finally meet you. Can't say we know much about you, since you're the most mysterious one Carlos has brought home yet - and between you and me, that's saying a lot," he added in a loud whisper.

"Thanks, Cris," Carlos sighed.

"I'm kidding, I'm kidding. He's not brought home too many guys, and only a few girls," Cris winked.

"That's not better," the scientist muttered as his face flushed.

"You leave him alone - he _just_ got here," Cassie drawled. "And don't be a complete waste of space, help me get these bags upstairs." She threw a duffel in his direction in an attempt to catch him off-balance, but he just laughed.

"What is it you do, Cecil?" he asked as he swung the bag over one shoulder and reached for the handle to the suitcase.

"I-I host a radio show," Cecil stammered, completely shell-shocked by the sudden onrush of introductions.

"Radio, eh? You don't see a lot of people in that line of work these days. But that's probably because radio isn't a visual communication medium," he joked.

"I see where Carlos gets his sense of humor," Cecil offered weakly.

"I like you!" Cris announced with a laugh as he dragged the suitcase upstairs and out of the conversation.

"Don't pay him any attention. He talks twice as fast as he thinks. If he teases you, you've made his good side - so welcome to the family," Cassie said with a smile and a reassuring squeeze to Cecil's shoulder. "The kids are all out in the back playing in the snow. Sandra's been asking about you for hours," she tossed over her shoulder as she followed Cris up the stairs with what was left of their luggage. From the corner of the hall, a slight woman watched the introductions wordlessly. Although there was a serene smile on her lips, her dark eyes were cautious as Carlos slowly approached. The scientist hesitated the briefest moment before giving her a careful hug.

"Thank you for inviting us for Christmas." He reached back for Cecil who was still hiding mostly behind him. "Isabel, this is Cecil. Cecil, Isabel."

"You have a lovely home," Cecil said warmly, casting a glance to the tasteful garlands twisted around the sweeping staircase in the foyer. "I've never seen so many lights inside before." Isabel's smile widened slightly.

"Thank you. I should be getting back to check on lunch, but feel free to make yourselves at home," she offered quietly before slipping back into the kitchen. Carlos let out a relieved little sigh.

"Now the _definite_ worst is over," the scientist whispered. Taking Cecil's hand, he pulled him through the house's sprawling hallways, stopping in front of a set of French doors that led to a patio and expansive back yard in which several children played in the still-falling snow. "How are you holding up? I know they can be a bit intimidating at first." Cecil just shrugged.

"It's a lot of names. I don't know if I can keep everybody all straight," he admitted.

"You think there's a lot of people now, just wait until the cousins get in this afternoon. Six of them, five with significant others, somewhere near ten kids now between them. I find it's better if you try to just think of it in groups." Carlos pointed out to a group of three children rolling the lopsided base of a snowman. "You see the one in the blue? That's Lena, Cris's oldest. It's short for Magdalena - named after my mother. The one in the green, and the one in the pink making the snow angel? That's Eva and Angela, his younger two. They're twins too. Everyone says it skips a generation, so that was a...fun surprise. Cris is married to Isabel. Their kids don't really like me, but that's probably because Isabel doesn't really like me all that much," Carlos shrugged. "The other girl with the brown coat and the little boy catching snowflakes belong to Cassie. Alessandra and Nicholas. As much as Cris's kids _don't_ like me, Cassie's kids _do_."

"And who is she married to?" Cecil asked as he wrinkled his nose in concentration.

"She's um..she was married. Alex isn't here this year though. They were always fighting, a fire-and-ice type of thing. It's her first Christmas since they split, and she's really lucky she got to bring the kids," Carlos said quietly. "So, you want to meet them?" No sooner had they stepped out onto the patio than Alessandra and Nicholas took off stumbling towards them with excited squeals. Nicholas was the first to reach the pair as he threw himself straight into Carlos's arms. The scientist swung him around in a little circle that elicited a bright giggle. "I can't believe how big you are now! How old are you?" The little boy held up four pudgy fingers proudly.

"Not yet!" Alessandra squeaked indignantly, hands on her hips. "You're only three and a half!"

"_Almost_ four," Carlos corrected with a kiss to Nicholas's forehead before setting him back on the ground and kneeling down to Alessandra's height. "And that would make you _almost_ six!" The girl blushed and twirled the end of her braid. Nicholas peered up curiously at Cecil with bright blue eyes before making up his mind and going straight for a tight hug to the man's legs. The three girls beyond them continued to work on assembling the snowman, but a few curious looks began to wander their way.

"Who are you?" Alessandra asked, less trusting of the newcomer. Carlos had been debating what exactly to tell the children to help them make the connection.

"This is Tio Cecil," he said, settling for the more easily recognizable words.

"You got married?" Alessandra asked with a disbelieving little smirk. Cecil dropped down to her level so she could examine him closer.

"Not married," Cecil shrugged, lifting the explanation from the scientist. "But I do love him, so it counts." Alessandra poked at his cheeks, his glasses, ran her fingers through a lock of his wavy hair.

"I like your hair," she decided finally.

"And I like yours," he replied with a touch to her long dark braid. "Did you do that yourself?"

"Mama just taught me how," she beamed, blinking her long dark eyelashes shyly. By now the bystanders had given up on their snowman and were creeping ever so slightly closer to the group for some introductions of their own. Eventually there was a small crowd surrounding Cecil, asking where he'd come from and why he was wearing such a big coat for such a little amount of snow and if he liked building snow people. Carlos slipped back inside after a while, not surprised a few minutes later to peek out the window and see Cecil giving piggyback rides to one of the twins. Again those same thoughts crossed his mind that someday maybe they could have their own little family. As always, he tried his best to shake them away, but he couldn't entirely shake away the smile.

* * *

There were surprisingly few incidents until later in the afternoon. Carlos was listening to one of his uncles talk with Cris about a muscle car they had found on an online auction when Cassie found him. "Something's happened with Cecil. We were making cookies, and I swear if I had known he was allergic, I would never have given it to him," she rushed as she pulled him into the kitchen.

"Allergic? Cecil, what's happened?" he asked quickly.

"How long til we know?" Cecil asked coolly in response.

"Know what?"

"There's wheat in the cookies, Carlos. The people at Mission Grove, how long until we knew they were contaminated?" Carlos bit his lip and tried to find the most gentle wording. The silence was wording enough. "I'm guessing it's not like that here," Cecil realized with a shake of his head. "I'm not doing very well am I?"

"You're doing fine. It's a lot of little changes. You can't expect to memorize them in a list and remember them all," Carlos reassured him. He glanced around for the offending cookie which sat harmlessly on the granite countertop. As he lifted what was left of it, he vaguely recognized the dark colored icing and the white sigils and patterns piped along the shape of the gingerbread man. On the opposite counter there were several more similar little shapes all carefully detailed. "Cecil, did you do these? They're wonderful." Cecil brightened immediately.

"Cassie was telling me that angels are a part of Christmas tradition here. I don't know how accurate these are since no one is technically aware their hierarchy, and also because these are just cookie replicas, but I think it's a lovely tradition."

"Can I have one?" Carlos asked as he reached for an angel that peeked up at him through seven little white eyes. Cecil nodded enthusiastically now that he was certain the treats were safe for consumption. "You want to come sit with me in the living room?" Carlos asked as he took a bite of the much-missed wheat product.

"Actually Cassie and I are going to make fudge, right?" Cecil bubbled.

"Absolutely!" Cassie confirmed as she stepped around them to pull more trays from the oven.

"There's no wheat in fudge, is there?" Cecil whispered as she turned back to the sink. Carlos leaned up and kissed Cecil on the nose.

"No, baby, there's no wheat in fudge," he laughed as he left them to it.

Before the fudge had even cooled, sticky little fingers had sneaked their way into the kitchen to steal a snitch - and while they were at it, a new playmate. A very long and discreet game of hide-and-seek kept Cecil well-hidden for most of the afternoon, but somewhere between the arrival of the Tio Cisco with 21 more relatives from the airport and one of the cousins somehow drinking a bit too much on the plane and starting a very loud argument in Spanish, Cecil managed to disappear entirely. In the general chaos of people throughout the house, Carlos didn't realize he had gone missing until dinnertime rolled around and everybody was finding their place at the table. The scientist found his boyfriend upstairs in their guest bedroom quietly staring out the window at the patterns the moon made on the smooth blanket of snow on the street below.

"I've been looking all over for you. We're just getting dinner on the table."

"I'll be down in a minute," Cecil said softly. Too softly. Carlos wandered over to the window and peeked up at him. His hair was carefully messed up and all brushed down at an awkward angle that nearly covered his eyes. The sleeves of his jacket were pulled over the backs of his hands and he looked altogether very lost.

"You still doing alright?"

"I'm fine. It's just loud down there. And there's a lot of people." Cecil tried to smile, but it didn't stick. It was clear that there was something else bothering him.

"Are you sure that's all?" Carlos pressed gently.

"I like your family," Cecil finally admitted. "I just wonder if this is what it would have been like for me growing up if things had gone differently. If my mom hadn't disappeared and I hadn't wound up alone. I mean, don't get me wrong, on New Years Eve I can see the fireworks perfectly from Josie's rooftop. And I'm proud to call her my family. I just wish I had gotten the chance to have a family like this," he finished quietly.

"Well," Carlos said after a long moment. "We're not incredibly functional all the time, and my cousin Martin drinks too much, and sometimes we yell at each other even when we're not upset. But we're a family, and we love each other, and you're welcome to be a part of it if you'd like."

"Do I have to yell in Spanish?" Cecil asked with a laugh as he wiped at one of his eyes beneath his glasses.

Carlos took his hand and led him down the stairs to the dining room. "Don't worry, I'll teach you only the most creative insults."

Dinner didn't make things too much better. They had squished together a mish-mash of card tables and end tables to seat everyone at once, excepting the children whose giggles drifted out from the kitchen. If the scientist had worried about anyone being insensitive or rude, it was his cousins for whom the adjectives were more a trait of their personality at this point. Between Carlos and Cassie, Cecil was able to get rough translations of the general conversation emanating from the other end of the long dinner table, but it didn't stop Cassie from trying. Being a fair amount of loud herself, she made frequent attempts to shift the language of the conversation, or at least bring focus back to the newcomer everybody knew so very little about. A fortuitous lull in the conversation presented her with a perfect opportunity.

"So, Cecil, what's life like where you call home?" she asked loudly, even though he was sitting right next to her.

"Well," he began, smoothing his voice into his most professional radio tones. "Life is quite different from here." In the moment that he hesitated to find a safe way to explain Night Vale without sounding too unusual, a good fraction of his audience lost interest and went back to quiet chatter. "The desert is a lot warmer than here. Most people believe snow to be a myth, in fact." His voice grew a bit unsteady as the murmur claimed a few more listeners. "The stars are brighter, or maybe there are more of them. I'm-I'm not sure, actually." By now only a few people at their end of the table were even paying attention. "Sometimes people back home, they spontaneously just.." the sentence stopped at the sound of fork tines tapping glass. Cris stood at the end of the table and, with an adoring look down at Isabel, made an excited announcement of a new little addition to their family.

"We don't know if it's a girl or a boy yet, but we're hoping to finally paint the nursery blue," he finished to a clamor of congratulations. Carlos smiled but kept his thoughts to himself. It was absolutely _not_ that he wasn't happy for his brother. It was more that every step of his life had been outdone. His graduation from college had been dwarfed by Cris being accepted into med school, his earning of a government grant outshone by Cris completing his residency and being licensed to practice independently. And now that Carlos had Cecil, the one thing in his life that he was most proud of, it only made sense that Cris would have news to overshadow even that. Even if after all the years he was used to it, Cassie was not about to give up that easily. She waited for a polite amount of excited chatter to quiet down before again very loudly bringing the attention back to her little brother.

"I would like to know how you two met," she announced brightly. It was slightly_ too_ successful at silencing the table_ too_ quickly. Carlos had been entirely lost in his thoughts and consequently stuttered considerably.

"Um. Well, it was my first day in Arizona. I gave a press conference and met a group of the town's most important people afterwards. Cecil's important to the town, so that's how we met," he finished awkwardly. Cecil gave him a funny look.

"Honey, I love you, but I think that's the worst version of that story I've ever heard. And I should know, since I've told most of the versions in circulation myself." There was a small ripple of laughter around the table.

"Okay, how would you tell it?" Cecil straightened in his chair and folded his hands on the table in front of himself just like he did during his broadcasts.

"It was a warm and sunny Friday in June when Carlos, wonderful and perfect, came to town. There was in fact a press conference, after which I did meet him, but I knew I was a lost cause right away. In fact all it took was one smile, one brilliant perfect smile, for me to fall instantly in love." A brief chorus of 'aw's from the ladies (and a parody from Cris) echoed around the table. Cecil had slipped seamlessly into his storytelling persona - all precise words and perfectly timed pauses and little bits of conveniently placed humor. For the first time since they'd left, he almost seemed like himself again. "I think for a long time I scared you," Cecil continued with an amused expression. Carlos couldn't help but laugh as he nodded. "But we became friends eventually and he would talk about science, and I would pretend to understand all the big words because I wanted him to think I was smart." Another pause as the listeners chuckled. The silence stretched on a moment too long as Cecil lost an ounce of his composure. "One day there was a-" he cleared his throat. "It was exactly one year later when.."

"I was in an accident," Carlos finished for him. He hadn't mentioned anything about the bowling alley incident to his family because they worried about him enough with what little contact he could manage to get past the city limits. "I had a close call, and it made me realize that life is too short to be afraid of taking chances. So I guess that was when I knew too." For a moment it was quiet enough to hear a pin drop, but Martin was quick to change that.

"Damn, and I thought it was cool that Leah and I met on the cracker aisle at Kroger." The table erupted back into rambunctious laughter as glasses were emptied and dishes stacked. Carlos caught his sister's eye and mouthed a thank you before joining in the cleanup. After his bit of storytelling at dinner, it seemed that Cecil was suddenly the subject of quite a bit of attention. He was immediately spirited away from his volunteer dish duty to help hang lights on the porch with some of the younger cousins - especially 17-year-old Ana who seemed eager to spend as much time as physically close to him as possible. Carlos volunteered to take his place in the assembly-line dish process, thankful that it would give him time to talk somewhat privately to Cassie.

"Seriously, thanks for helping out at dinner tonight. The trip's been a bit rough for him so far," Carlos said as he dried a plate and handed it to Cassie to place in the cupboard. "Coincidentally, what's your opinion?"

"Well he's a lot different than I expected from your descriptions. He's great - don't get me wrong; incredibly sweet and charming in an odd way. But he seems so timid, as if he's actually afraid of eye contact. And when I held his hand to say grace at supper he acted like I'd burned him. It's just surprising," she shrugged.

"I'm pretty surprised myself. I mean, Cecil is the _least_ shy person I've ever met. I'm thinking he's just a little overwhelmed. He doesn't come from a large family - or really any family to speak of." Cassie made a sad little sound as she lifted another plate into the cupboard.

"So that's why he was telling me while we were working on the fudge that he's never had a Christmas before." Slipping into the mom role she had adopted so often when Carlos was growing up, she suddenly shared an idea. "What does Cecil like? Cris is taking all the kids to the mall tomorrow morning for pictures with Santa. Cecil asked to go along because he says he has to go buy something specific, but while they're out why don't we pick him up something fun?"

"No, Cassie," Carlos insisted. "We don't do presents. Boxes and paper and bows and everything, we just don't." She dismissed his protests with a look that told him she was planning on going through with her idea whether he helped her or not. With a sigh he decided resisting was futile. "He collects a lot of things - cheap trinkets, colorful coffee cups, horrible sweaters, packs of playing cards."

"Give me something specific," Cassie whined.

"He likes cats?" Carlos shrugged. "He has a dog, but most everything else in our house is cats. But really, presents aren't a thing, Cass. It's not a good idea." Cassie messed up his hair affectionately.

"You've forgotten that all my ideas are good ideas," she winked.

* * *

_End Notes: How cute would Night Vale-ian angel cookies be though, I mean really? I might be tempted to try making some for real this season... Also this is so heavily influenced by my own family reunion experience last summer, and I didn't even realize until I was editing it._


	4. Chapter 4

**In Night Vale, if Santa Claus is truly coming to town, then the best strategy is to be dead already.**

* * *

Carlos leaned absently against the one open wall space in the hallway between the atrium and the kitchen, fidgeting with a Rubik's cube Cecil had brought to him the previous night in fascination. From the sink Cassie and Isabel's conversation drifted softly. It was early enough in the morning that the louder members of the family were still sound asleep, but late enough that the rest of them were enjoying a peaceful morning lazily preparing for the day's Christmas Eve festivities. Over and over the colors turned between his fingers without ever fully aligning.

"I'm ready whenever," Cecil's clear voice echoed up the staircase in the atrium as he swung around the banister at the bottom, tucking his sleeves into his jacket as he went. Carlos attempted a few more shuffled twists before his eyes focused beyond the cube in his hands to a pair of silver wingtips carefully aligned with his own worn-out red sneakers. With a grin, the scientist set the cube on the end table and turned his attention towards Cecil instead.

"I hear you're off on an adventure."

"It's just the mall," Cecil shrugged. "Cris says they decorate it elaborately. I'm assuming the tinsel here isn't technically a weapon, so I have to admit I'm excited."

"Kinda put your shopping off til the last minute, don't you think?" Carlos teased.

"Oh, I'm not going to shop. I just want to see what the mall is like here." Something about it didn't ring true since he had specifically asked Cassie if he could go along to shop the afternoon before, but Carlos didn't question it. Cecil wasn't normally one for surprises, but after all their months together, the scientist had to admit his boyfriend had a lot of incongruities and little mysteries still waiting to be solved. Cassanya coughed abruptly, dragging Carlos from whatever train of thought his mind was lazily traversing along. Both men looked up at her in unison as she pointed above them.

"Mistletoe," she sang. A sharp blush crept instantly to the scientist's cheeks.

"Tradition goes," he explained quietly, "those caught together under the mistletoe are required to kiss." Cecil eyed him suspiciously.

"You're teasing."

"Well come on then," Cassie interrupted. "If we don't have our traditions what do we have, really?" Carlos raised his eyebrows as Cecil pulled him shyly across the hallway. For a tender moment, Cecil's indigo eyes searched his face, memorizing all the tiniest details before softly pressing their lips together. There was always something sweet and slightly dizzying about Cecil's kisses that frequently and alarmingly literally seemed to stop time. Carlos assumed it was just another Night Vale anomaly, except that even there in the very normal hallway beneath very normal mistletoe, the very normal kiss still seemed to slow the world a bit. As softly and gently as it began, it ended and time resumed its normal patterns.

"I'm beginning to really like Christmas," Cecil whispered as he took a bashful step back.

"Hey, Cecil, I finally wrangled all the kids into the car. You ready to go?" Cris called as he stomped the snow off his boots at the front door.

"Yeah." Cecil turned back to Carlos. "Sure you don't want to come along?"

"I've been assigned to pie duty," the scientist sighed. "Text me if you need me." Cecil leaned in and kissed him once more, whispering an_ I love you_ before following Cris out into the snow. Carlos just stared up at the mistletoe to avoid his sister's gaze. Instead of the ribbing he was anticipating, she made a small sniffling noise. He stepped quickly around the countertop to confirm his suspicions. "Oh my god, are you crying?"

"I am not," she retorted as she blotted at her cheek with the sleeve of her sweatshirt.

"You are such a teenage girl," he teased.

"Shut up, Carlos. I just think you two are sweet. I mean there's love, and then there's _love_, where he eats left-handed because he refuses to let go of your hand under the table," Cassie explained as she began to measure flour into a dish.

"That's because Cecil's ambidextrous and a show-off," Carlos dismissed.

"Ah yes, ambidextrous. That explains why you practically finished each other's sentences during that story at dinner last night."

"I don't have a good excuse for that," Carlos admitted finally.

"All I'm saying, Carlito, is that I know what love like that is like. And my biggest regret in my life was not holding on to Alex as tightly as I could have. So you hold on to him until your fingers bleed, you got that?" Carlos absently sifted powdered sugar and tried very hard to not think about how literally he could one day have to take those instructions in the relative chaos of Night Vale.

* * *

Cecil eyed the children in line to see Santa skeptically as he listened to the phone ring. Three tones later, the scientist's silken voice echoed over the phone.

"Hey, is everything alright?" The question had been asked enough times over the past three days to make anyone feel like a small, incompetent child; however Cecil wasn't just anyone. He was well aware of his slight tendency to panic at deviations from the status quo. More than that, he never for one moment took it lightly that existence itself had aligned at a precise intersection to bring him someone as beautiful and smart and caring as Carlos; let alone that in the whole, wide universe, this tiny fragment of imperfect perfection chose to care about him and the minute details of his infinitesimal and rather dull life. So he just smiled to himself and reassured Carlos that, as always, everything in the world was deeply unpredictable and relative, but fine.

"Except," he added "I can't figure out why so many people want their children photographed with a Santa impersonator."

"Parents tell their children that Santa is the one who brings the presents Christmas morning," the scientist patiently explained.

"Exactly. It's terrible. The fact that they force the children to sit on his lap..it's all very upsetting, isn't it?" Carlos just laughed - all warm and bright and breathtaking, just like everything else about the scientist. Cecil loved making him laugh, even if he didn't always understand why the things he said were humorous.

"It's okay. Santa always scared me too. I mean, the guy breaks into your house. And the whole '_sees you when you're sleeping_' thing creeped me out as a kid," he confided.

"I-I like that he wears red here too though. It's familiar, though traditionally deeper red back home. You know - supposedly stained with the blood of the children who have been naughty according to the Night Before Christmas poem." The phone line went temporarily silent. "I suppose not everyone is well-versed in the laundering properties of hydrogen peroxide," Cecil laughed uncomfortably. Even he could tell he was babbling. It was only a problem that presented itself when he was extremely nervous, or slightly tipsy, or when he was telling other people about Carlos. Before he could absently start in on any further bedtime stories, he tugged a folded paper from his pocket. The creases in the light pink diner menu were well-worn from months of covert scrutiny, the scrawled list on the reverse side so carefully memorized by heart. His eyes flitted down the list to the selection of colors. "Carlos, if you had to live the rest of your life in eternal sunlight, eternal moonlight, or..well, I suppose in an eternal lack of all light - which would you choose?"

"Moonlight," Carlos replied almost immediately.

"But _why_ moonlight?" Cecil pressed.

"Well, sunlight is warm, but moonlight is soft. Shapes and colors are segregated by one, and equalized by the other. A lack of light is essentially useless in all aspects."

"And you prefer simplicity to receiving recognition?" Cecil continued quickly.

"I guess it depends on the situation. Why are you asking me so many questions?" Carlos sounded slightly suspicious.

"I just like knowing things about you," Cecil hurried. It was partially true. He did like knowing things about Carlos. Cecil wasn't one to forget much of anything (unless it was mandated, of course), but when it came to Carlos he didn't forget a single fact. All the bits of information spoken in passing in the kitchen or confessed late at night in the dark were collected and kept at the back of his mind in a steady murmur. He knew exactly how much sugar Carlos liked in his coffee and which shoe he always double-knotted first and the reasons why he wouldn't do certain things in bed and which dreams he would have followed if he hadn't become a scientist. And now he knew exactly what to buy him for Christmas.

"Well, which light would you choose?" Carlos countered.

"I would like to say moonlight, though I don't trust the moon. Then again, the sun is slowly dying, so perhaps I don't trust it either. Anyway, I have to be back at the main atrium in approximately," he checked the watch his boyfriend had given him all those months ago and realized that for the first time it actually seemed congruent with the hour, "22 minutes, so I should go." With one more assurance that he was fine and everything was still fine, he ended the call and slipped the phone back into his pocket. The menu too was folded and replaced carefully back into his jacket. He inhaled deeply through his nose and exhaled the air back out in a quick breath before turning the corner to the little shop.

* * *

For the house being an increasingly hectic mess of festivities, things went considerably well for quite some time. Cecil spent a good part of the afternoon helping Isabel make the eggnog. After she caught him slipping extra cinnamon in behind her back, her lips slipped into a sly smile and she pulled out a few more experimental spices. They took turns taste-testing their unorthodox recipe between dashes. Later, as the whole family gathered in the living room to pass around a guitar and sing carols, he hummed along with a fair number of them. When the guitar was placed in his hands, he quickly passed it along to one of the cousins, with the excuse that he had learned very different words to most of the songs. Cecil even helped hang the stockings along the mantle, all the while listening to Rosa explain how carefully she knit each one as grandchildren married and families grew. But there were increasingly frequent moments when he thought nobody was looking that he allowed a distressed expression to flit across his face. Once Cris finally got the tree set up in the window, Cecil went out of his way to give it a careful berth. During a few of the carols, he squinted his eyes shut tight and moved his lips soundlessly and very rapidly in an unreadable garble. When Martin and Leah stepped into the living room with arms full of garishly wrapped gift boxes, Cecil slipped away again.

Anyone who didn't know him the way Carlos did would have overlooked the slurred excuse, the immediate escape from the room. It took Night Vale to recognize the panic in his eyes. By the time he reached their bedroom, Cecil was curled up against the headboard against the wall. It was his reaction when things upset him to withdraw into as small a shape as possible, as if taking up the least amount of space in the universe would give it less of a reason to turn its attention onto him.

"It's that bad in Night Vale?" Carlos asked as he sat gently on the edge of the bed.

"No worse than most holidays. Legend has it long ago some of the early settlers cut down the lone tree that was able to grow in the desert and brought it into their makeshift home for a pagan celebration. The earth swore its vengeance, and now every year the trees appear within homes with no distinct pattern. It's practically a death omen, since Santa visits the homes with trees bearing unknown terrors bundled in bright-colored boxes," he explained in a hoarse whisper. From their conversation earlier, Carlos gathered that 'Santa' was something very real and very bloody in Night Vale.

"I thought he only went after the naughty children?"

"Let's just say Christmas is a dangerous time for everyone. Naughty or nice." Carlos opened his mouth to say something, but Cecil beat him to it. "I'm not stupid. I realize there's a difference between your world and mine. Old traditions just die hard," he sighed, curling even further into himself.

"That's why you don't like presents then?" Cecil nodded emphatically. "It's safe though, I promise," Carlos assured gently. "I wouldn't let anything bad happen to you." He offered a hand, but Cecil shook his head and reached instead for his carefully smuggled bloodstone from the outside pocket of the suitcase.

"It's just a lot of changes, all too fast," he explained guiltily as he clutched the bloodstone tightly between his fingers. Of course Carlos was a little disappointed. He had brought Cecil mostly to meet his family, but partially in the hope that his boyfriend would experience and participate in the traditions of the outside world and realize that there were alternatives to living in perpetual fear. But then his mind wandered back to his exhausting first few months in Night Vale when he quite genuinely doubted his own sanity and had nearly suffered a complete collapse due to the confusing, foreign terrors he couldn't come to terms with. Cecil had listened to his late night phone calls full of desperate ramblings, and had even braved the wrath of Station Management just to help him find answers. So instead of being upset or disappointed, he let his expectations go and placed a comforting hand on Cecil's folded knee.

"I know, querido. You don't have to participate in anything you're uncomfortable with." Alessandra chose that moment to burst into the room unexpectedly.

"Tio Carlos, Mama just found the ornaments and Lena already hung the angel on top!" She ran back down the hall stopping at various doors to dutifully call the occupants within back down to the festivities.

"Go on," Cecil nodded to the doorway. "It's tradition after all."

* * *

"Is he okay?" Cris asked as Carlos slipped back into the living room and sat on the sofa with Cassie. "Looked pretty pale there for a minute."

"He's fine, just tired." Cassie shoved a carton of wire hooks into his lap and handed him re-assembled ornaments to thread them through.

"You sure?" she whispered pointedly. He looked away from her inquisitive gaze. "Look," she continued quietly. "I understand being eclectic - which he definitely is - but there's something about him that I can't put my finger on. I get the impression there's some secret the two of you are trying very hard to hide, and I can understand and respect that. Just - is everything really okay?" Carlos handed a bright blue bauble to Nicholas and watched him teeter trying to reach the perfect branch to place it.

"It's complicated, Cass. When I say he comes from a strange town, I don't mean a backwards holler in the Appalachians or a secluded super-conservative compound somewhere. I mean he comes from the Twilight Zone, practically." He paused to hand out a few more finished glass balls to waiting hands. "Part of the reason why I was so eager to bring him home was in the hopes that he would see there are other ways to live that can be just as good. Instead, all this trip has done is make him homesick for the desert," he sighed.

"You don't call the desert home then?"

"It is, in some ways -_ a lot of ways_," he corrected himself. "I'm happy there, but I miss a world that makes sense sometimes. Of course I'd never leave him; I'm just afraid he's completely terrified of ever leaving Night Vale again after this trip." He set the tray of hooks on the coffee table as the family took a collective step back to admire their finished work. The tree sparkled with lights that reflected in colorful patterns on the shining ornaments. It didn't take long before one-by-one sleepy parents carried sleepier children off to bed. Eventually it was only the two of them and Alessandra sitting quietly watching the lights, with little Nicholas sound asleep in the scientist's lap.

"I don't know the situation, Carlos, so I can't tell you very well what to do from here. But I can tell you that love is a choice. Not a one-time decision, but a daily choice to wake up in the morning and put your needs second to those of someone else. It isn't a perfect system, and it's easily abused, but if both of you make that same decision then you'll be happy wherever or however that may be." She rose to leave, gently removing the sleeping child from her brother's lap. "Santa's going to be stopping by in only an hour or two," she explained, then in a whisper "and she doesn't have any wrapping done yet. Feliz navidad, Carlito," she said with a ruffle of his hair before switching out the light and leaving him alone in the glow from the tree.

It wasn't even a full five minutes later that the floorboards squeaked ever so softly. Turning suddenly, he was surprised to see Cecil standing at the opposite end of the sofa, two large mugs in hand. Handing the scientist a mug of eggnog, he sat down wordlessly. The frothy drink had been unequivocally his favorite part of the festivities, as he very proudly watched for reactions to his original recipe. Carlos found it surprisingly good, even if it did have a bit of heat from some unknown mixture of spices that Isabel had uncharacteristically agreed to. Cecil was persuasive and charming enough that people normally went with his ideas. It was part of what made him such an indispensable part of Night Vale's community.

"I'm sorry," Cecil said, finally breaking the long silence as he set his empty mug on the floor and lay down comfortably with his head in Carlos's lap. Out of habit, he began to brush his fingers through Cecil's soft hair.

"You don't have to be sorry. I'm so proud of how well you've been managing, actually."

"But I could do better - try harder. I really do like learning about where you came from," Cecil insisted. He tugged restlessly at the sleeves of his violet pinstripe pajamas before sitting back up again. "I have a whole new appreciation now for how it must have been for you coming to Night Vale. Everything in your world is so...benign."

"I guess it is," Carlos agreed with a laugh.

"I'm sorry I missed your Christmas traditions though," Cecil said with a frown. "I know it was special to you, and I shouldn't have freaked out the way I did." Carlos dismissed it with a shake of his head. "I mean it," Cecil continued, scooting closer. "But since it's our first Christmas actually spent together, I was thinking maybe we could start some traditions of our own." He reached into the pocket of his pajamas and produced a small box carefully wrapped in festive paper. "It's not so scary if I know what's inside," he added as he handed it to Carlos. The scientist smiled and reached into his own pocket, removing a slightly larger box that was much less-elegantly wrapped.

"I guess we had the same idea then," he said with a grin. "At the same time?"

"No!" Cecil interjected unexpectedly. "I want to open mine first," he quickly added with a quirky little grin.

"Sorry the box looks like a train ran over it," Carlos apologized self-consciously.

"Not a train," Cecil drawled with a quick kiss on his cheek. "Maybe a semi-truck, but not a train." Carlos made a miffed little sound as Cecil giggled and tore the rest of the paper off to reveal a shiny purple pen. "It's my favorite color!" Cecil bubbled as he removed the pen from its box and examined it. "I never took you for such a rebel."

"It's a space pen. The tip is made from fitted carbide, and the ink is held in a hermetically sealed pressurized reservoir and is forced out by compressed nitrogen." Cecil gave him the bemused little stare that let the scientist know he'd gone a little too far into science. "It writes in zero gravity." This was a concept Cecil could easily understand. "It was meant for astronauts in space, but I figured maybe you could use it on Tuesdays-"

"At the Pinkberry," Cecil finished in unison. "I can't believe you remembered that." He leaned over and kissed Carlos softly, careful not to linger in case restless nighttime wanderings were a trait the rest of the family shared. "Your turn," he whispered as he leaned away.

"Mine looks like a truck ran over it and yours is flawless," Carlos mumbled as he carefully unwrapped the little box. He lifted the lid to reveal a simple silver ring contrasted against the box's black interior. "Cecil, what is this?" His voice was slightly trembling as his mind tried to process the implications. He looked up to see Cecil perched up on both knees on the floor in front of him, hair messy and glasses off-kilter in his striped purple pajamas.

"Carlos, do you want to spend the rest of our lives together?" Cecil rushed suddenly. The scientist was momentarily stunned as his mind tried to catch up to the reality of the situation. Cecil shook his head in confusion. "Sorry, I think that's supposed to come at the end, isn't it? Feelings first, question after. I'm getting this all wrong." He took a careful breath and gently removed the box from Carlos's hands, replacing it with his own. His voice softened into the tone he only used when something was very special, and very important. "Carlos, I know we haven't been together long. Only 557 days in fact, but it feels like so much longer. According to your science that's because time in Night Vale is slower than it should be, but I like to think it's also because of love. I love you, Carlos. I've loved you since I met you in fact, and I'm quite sure I'll love you until the day those lights above Arby's finally descend to disrupt the democracy and overtake our planet after annihilating all living things through the use of technology that I assume will be far beyond our own."

"In other words until the day you die?" Carlos whispered with a cross between a hiccup and a laugh.

"And should our existence beyond the grave be sentient and capable of thought and emotion, I'm sure I will love you long after that." He paused for a moment to gather the rest of his thoughts and try to stop the deep blush that was blooming across his face. "The lady at the jewelry store warned me that I couldn't marry you in Arizona, but I don't know that I really care because all I want to do is spend the rest of my life loving you in whatever way I can for however long that may be. So, my darling, wonderful Carlos," he reached back for the little box with the ring inside, "do you want to spend the rest of our lives together?"

In that single moment, a hundred different memories flooded through the scientist's mind. Some were memories of his past, the quiet life he had led long before his existence was spun upside down by an unexpected gravitational shift. Some were memories of his recent conversations with his sister, the realization of everything he would be giving up in the world for a concept he had never fully believed in until a year ago. But then came the memories of his new life, the one he shared with his strange radio host. The night they watched the lights at Arby's, their first kiss in the front seat of Cecil's car, the quiet moments in the morning when all the world seemed to disappear around them, the way Cecil blushed every time he kissed him, the way his eyes sparkled so deeply amethyst every time he said _I love you_ - the very same way they sparkled right now. As he looked carefully at the man on two knees on the living room floor in his pajamas with his hair in a mess and his glasses at a tilt, suddenly every doubt and every second thought vanished, because Carlos _knew_. He knew that everything before Cecil wasn't worth remembering, every day without him wasn't worth living. Cecil was the most beautiful, unexpected, wonderful thing that had ever happened in his life, and even if the way he loved him was unexplainable, Carlos knew it was its own form of perfection that he would never find again. And so, as the Christmas lights sparkled all around them, Carlos said one sentence with absolute certainty.

"I think that would be pretty neat."

Cecil was on top of him in an instant, arms around his neck as kisses were planted quickly and quite thoroughly everywhere, finishing with one blissfully tender one that lingered a recklessly long time on his lips.

"So I did that okay?" he asked finally, climbing off Carlos's lap and settling in a slightly more proper distance away, but still close enough to practically be on top of his now-fiancé if he wanted.

"You did that perfectly, querido," Carlos beamed.

"I've been nervous for weeks," he sighed. "We don't do proposals like this in Night Vale. It's all very different with a joined prayer in the Old Tongue and then there's a cow involved and - well, it's all just very simple really. And back home we could get married - well, not necessarily married. Technically it's soul-binding, but we can choose to have a ceremony if we want to. I mean, not that we have to get bound or have a ceremony or even do anything, but we can-" Carlos leaned over and kissed him again, quite effectively silencing the nervous chatter.

"I think I'd like to make it official if you would," Carlos said as Cecil carefully slipped the ring onto his finger.

"Oh, I'd love it," Cecil sighed, collapsing back against the sofa and leaning his head contentedly on Carlos's shoulder. "I had no idea how proposals worked in the outside world. You'd never believe who I had to ask for advice." Cecil yawned. Carlos thought for a minute to which Night Vale residents would have a functional knowledge of the world beyond the desert.

"You didn't..." he said incredulously after a moment.

"Steve grew up in Arkansas, if anyone was going to know the outside world it would unfortunately be him." Cecil confirmed, wrinkling his nose.

"You asked Steve Carlsberg how to propose to me," Carlos chuckled quietly. "I can't believe he even helped you after all the crap you put him through on the radio."

Cecil shrugged. "I guess he figured I could make his life worse if he didn't cooperate. He was really helpful. We met for coffee and he made me a list of traditional settings and the proper format and the getting to your knees and everything. I've carried it around for months trying to figure out how to do this, and I still got it in the wrong order."

"You got it absolutely perfect," Carlos insisted as he wrapped an arm around Cecil's shoulders. The colorful lights of the tree glimmered off the silver band mesmerizingly. "Silver like moonlight," he realized quietly. "Gold would be sunlight, and black for an absence of all light?" Cecil nodded. "And it's simple and doesn't draw unnecessary attention. You really did get it perfect." Cecil was blushing beet red again as he buried his face shyly in the flannel of the scientist's shirt.

"Hey, how do you say '_Merry Christmas_' in Spanish?" he yawned after a minute.

"_Feliz navidad_."

"_Feliz navidad_," Cecil repeated slowly.

"Mm, feliz navidad, mi cariño," Carlos whispered with a soft kiss to the top of his sleepy fiancé's head.

* * *

_End Notes: So this happened. I've always secretly been a fan of surprise engagements in stories, so I figured why not? Besides I think Cecil trying to propose without the normality of ritualistic animal sacrifice would be endearing to say the least. And seriously: what about Santa Claus is NOT incredibly creepy? I mean really._


	5. Chapter 5

**There is no good way to tell your family that your fiancé is a little bit paranormal. There just isn't.**

* * *

It was barely six o'clock when the children were already running down the hall and banging on every door as they passed. Family tradition dictated a quick breakfast before presents, so the kids had apparently decided the sooner the process was started, the better. The sleepy adults inside hurried to throw on glasses and comb through hair enough to look good in the inevitable myriad of blurry photos that would wind their way into Rosa's annual family album.

Carlos hadn't slept too well the night before. Though he wanted to attribute it to the excitement of their engagement, his restless mind had been contemplating all the possible implications of a future in Night Vale.

"Something's bothering you," Cecil observed as he slipped into a very blue shirt and began to fasten the buttons. Even if he had agreed to leave his more unique outfits at home, the clothes he did bring were still all manner of vibrant and colorful.

"I think we need to tell my family about Night Vale," Carlos blurted unexpectedly. Cecil didn't say anything. "I mean," the scientist stuttered "we're spending the rest of our lives together. What if we decide to have kids of our own someday? What if my family wants to come see us on the holidays? We can't just expect them to go into this blind." The words spilled out in a vaguely rehearsed rush that his restless mind had been formulating since somewhere around 3 o'clock.

"Carlos, honey," Cecil began carefully. "It's not that I want to lie or keep things from your family, but I don't feel comfortable with telling them the truth."

"You're comfortable telling everybody everything else," Carlos snapped a little harsher than intended. The hurt look that crossed Cecil's face struck him immediately with guilt. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that." He softened his tone as he worked at brushing his curls into some semblance of order with his fingers. "I just feel like it's important that they know why I'll never visit often enough or why they won't be invited to whatever ceremony we decide to have."

"Can't we just let them be excited for us and pretend it's too far to drive?" Cecil mumbled as he slumped onto the edge of the bed. Carlos sat carefully next to him. "Things are too different. If this trip has taught me anything, it's that. _I'm_ too different. I stand out even in Night Vale, and Night Vale is weird."

"You're not weird," Carlos reassured him.

"Okay, but it took me a whole year to convince you of that," Cecil pointed out. "It's just better if they didn't know. Because gods forbid it, what if they disapproved of me not being exactly...ordinary? Or of the way we live in such constant calamity? I won't make you choose between me and your family. I would never put you in a situation like that."

"Cecil, I think you underestimate families," Carlos said gently. "Their job isn't to judge - it's to support unconditionally. They're the few people whose love you don't have to try to earn. Granted, sometimes some families can really suck at it, but at least most of them try pretty hard."

"Mine never did." Even though the words were quiet and lacked any trace of accusation, they still sparked a small tinge of enmity in the pit of the scientist's stomach for all the faceless strangers who had wounded so many scattered bits of Cecil over the years.

"Yours does now," he said very decidedly. Impatient children pounded down the hallway again ordering the adults down to the kitchen, but Cecil still seemed unconvinced. "How about we make a deal?" Carlos offered as he carefully removed Cecil's glasses and arranged his hair back to its normal position out of his eyes. "How about you stop trying so hard to hide who you are, and we'll see what the reaction is? If someone notices and says something, then we'll tell them the truth. If no one mentions anything, we'll take it as a sign and leave it alone." Cecil smiled slightly.

"Did you just suggest using fate as a determinant?"

"If that's not a sign of just how far we've come, I don't know what is," the scientist laughed.

The kitchen was a sleepy chorus of yawns when they walked in. Nobody commented on the fact that they were the last couple to arrive either because the rest of the group was too preoccupied downing mugs of coffee or they were slightly jealous that the late arrivals looked considerably more put-together for the early hour. From the dining room excited squeals and laughter drifted in as the children stuffed down their bowls of rice and glasses of orange juice, but the kitchen remained obstinately filled with a lazy silence. Deciding to take full advantage of the quiet before what promised to soon dissolve into giddy commotion, Carlos took a deep breath and tried not to stutter.

"Um, so. So Cecil and I have news. Good news." He never liked being the center of attention, even when the curious eyes in the room belonged to his family. The words would always get tangled on the way from his brain to his mouth. "Um. We're um." Giving up on trying to get the words out, he instead just held up his left hand where he couldn't stop fiddling with the unfamiliar ring. The kitchen erupted almost immediately in a bilingual mixture of congratulations and questions and excited hugs. It was Cassie who finally quieted the din.

"Who proposed, and how did it happen?" she asked with a grin as she poured them coffee.

"Cecil, late last night in the living room after everyone went to bed." A few of the aunts wistfully murmured comments on the sweetness of a Christmas Eve engagement.

"Do you guys know what your options are yet?" Cassie pressed as she handed them each a warm mug. Cecil carefully set his down on the countertop beside him.

"We're going to get married. Back home anyone can get married, even the ghosts," he said very quietly. The room fell silent at the unusual response. "Marriage there is different than here though, I think. There are a lot of things that are very different in Night Vale." He casually rolled the sleeves of his shirt up a few inches while he spoke. "Sometimes things that are different can seem dangerous and frightening, but sometimes they're just an unfamiliar kind of beautiful. They can be strange and unexpected," he took a breath and looked at Carlos for a long moment. "But they can also be wonderful." Carlos imperceptibly shook his head. Their deal had been to leave it up to fate, not to jump straight into this right away. Cecil just smiled and brushed a hand along the scientist's shoulders before reaching his arms out in front of himself. "It's okay to be different. Because wouldn't the world be a dull place if we were all the same?" He was shaking a little - only a little - but the indigo tentacles that wrapped around his arms beneath his skin remained perfectly still. They refused to move despite his every ounce of concentration and focus. Making up his mind to not let the strange scene slip on any further, Carlos leaned over and kissed his fiancé on the cheek, causing him to blush and the tentacles to squirm themselves a little tighter in a flustered reaction. There was a collective gasp followed by a long stretch of tense silence as nobody knew what to say. Carlos himself hadn't known how to react the first time he saw the shapes shift, but he had hoped his family would react with slightly more decorum than he had (he had quite gracelessly fallen out of his chair at Big Rico's and stared rather rudely for an extended period of time). He had hoped for a comment on the '_sweet ink_' from Cris or one of Cassie's warm, reassuring hugs, but the silence lingered on painful second after painful second until it was Abuela Rosa who stepped forward to examine Cecil carefully. She turned his arms over between her hands several times, closely inspecting every swirl that shied away from her touch, then took his face between both her calloused palms and pulled him down to plant a kiss to his forehead.

"Your stocking will be purple." She nodded with finality and went back to dishing up bowls of rice and passing them around the kitchen as if the entire situation were nothing even slightly out of the ordinary. Her reaction was precisely the catalyst Carlos had been hoping for. One-by-one hesitant touches were pressed to the patterns, curious questions asked to the newest member of the family. With a nod of confirmation from Carlos, Cecil began to answer the questions cautiously at first, then with excitement as he delved into stories of home and unexplainable lights and ancient customs and a hundred things stranger than a few sentient body modifications. The family's curiosity sparked something inside Cecil and brought out that bubbling, enthusiastic part of him that had been buried beneath a timid shell the entire trip. Reactions ranged anywhere from looks of sheer horror to stifled laughter to something best described as concern, but the smooth way the stories seemed to glide along eased most of the initial discomfort; by the time breakfast was finished, it took several impatient hands tugging at their parents' sleeves to finally break away his captive audience.

In the flurry of activity that followed in the living room, it wasn't surprising that Cecil was immediately dragged to the front lines of gift unwrapping to help small fingers undo the twine bows and tape. Carlos contentedly watched from the corner of the room, accepting scattered congratulations and answering a few straggling questions. Even Isabel wandered over with Cris to sip coffee and congratulate the couple. Their quiet conversation was cut short by Cecil's voice over the rest of the excited chatter.

"Carlos! Carlos, look!" Cecil was dressed in a baggy green sweater adorned with a horrendous number of small cat patterns. With a ridiculously wide grin, he tugged at the hem and pointed to one of the felines. "Cats!"

"Where did you even _find_ that?" Carlos asked Cris with a laugh.

"We went in search of the worst cat sweater we could find. It was a toss-up between that and an even worse one. Speaking of, Merry Christmas," he shoved a box into his little brother's hands, escaping into the mess of torn paper beneath the tree before there could be any protests. Inside the box Carlos found an equally hideous red sweater, which - in the festive spirit - he slipped on over his head.

"We match!" Cecil announced as he bounced across the living room and poked one of the kittens on the scientist's new sweater. "I'm glad we told them," he whispered with a kiss on the cheek before sighing happily. "We should get away for Christmas every year. It's kinda nice to take a break from violent holidays every once in a while."

"You mean you wouldn't mind leaving Night Vale from time to time?" Carlos asked in surprise. Cecil just flashed an adoring little smile as he shook his head.

"I'd go anywhere with you." Carlos watched as his fiancé was pulled back into the fray to help assemble a toy car racetrack with Nicholas on the floor. That was the moment he knew that he had made the right choice, because home wasn't the places where he grew up any more than it was the little town in the desert. It wasn't even the familiar cacophony of his own family. Home was where his heart was; as long as he and Cecil spent the rest of their lives together, then Carlos would be home for every terrifying and potentially deadly holiday.

* * *

_End Notes: Everybody's always debating whether or not Night Vale is really all that progressive, but that one line from episode 12 always stood out to me where Cecil mentions that ghosts can now marry, but can't have children. So I felt like slipping that in there. Also I can't deny that I wrote this chapter 1/4 to deal with how the family would react, and 3/4 because I couldn't resist the idea of both of these dorks in ugly Christmas sweaters._

Thank you so much to everyone who's been reading! I'm so glad people have enjoyed this random little burst of Christmas cheer and warm fuzzies, because writing it has been tons of fun. c: Happy holidays! (may they not be nearly as deadly as their Night Vale-ian equivalents!)


End file.
